Around this time last year, I found myself sitting in the waiting room of an Ob/Gyn just a few days before Mother's Day. I was simply there for a routine check-up, which I'd put off for years. I wasn't in a "season of waiting" at the time, but I was surprised at how quickly the memories came back to me. Those old familiar feelings of wondering and waiting--of years with no answers; of not knowing how to plan for the future. I remembered how it hurt to wait and to receive disappointment in place of promising expectation. I pulled my phone out that day and wrote this note to myself:

"Being in this waiting room reminds me of my journey to my children: full of twists and turns; broken pieces that God made beautiful. There is a soft spot that is buried down really deep. I didn't know that it was still there...I think God wants me to remember and to reach out. Motherhood is not a given, it is a gift. Maybe one day I'll be an old lady and still have that soft spot. I hope so, so that I can reach out to others and encourage them. I don't ever want to forget."

Now, I am no expert at the waiting game--honestly, I am still not very good at it. But I do have some experience with waiting (you can read more about that part of my story here and here), and there are some things I have learned that I feel are worth sharing:

I am the unofficial family photographer at all of my family functions. I love it. I have captured some of the best smiles and laughs from my nieces and nephews at birthday parties, vacations, Easter egg hunts--you name it.

It's become a tradition that I make my mom a calendar every Christmas featuring some of these photo treasures. Because the calendar can only hold so many photos, a lot of precious moments remain stored on my computer and never really see the light of day.

Last spring, my husband and I made an ottoman for our living room, and I have struggled with what to put "on" the ottoman ever since! I have tried out several blankets (because I wanted something to break up the solid color of the ottoman and add some texture) but they always ended up too big or too lumpy when folded, especially since we like to keep a tray on the ottoman for coffee cups and other things when we have guests over.

I was looking for something that would add some warmth and "hygge" (hue-guh, the popular Danish art of creating coziness : ) to our living room for the winter.

In the weeks leading up to our placement with our sweet Solly, I heard a song that I just couldn't get out of my head. It became my anthem in the waiting and wondering. I sang it all day long...

The mountain where I climbedThe valley where I fellYou were there all alongThat’s the story I’ll tellYou brought the pieces togetherMade me this storytellerNow I know it is well, it is wellThat’s the story I’ll tell

I woke up this morning with one thought heavy on my mind: what if you didn’t get what you wanted?

Of course there are things we wish we’d gotten that we didn’t...a new car with a big red bow like in the commercials, or meeting the man of our dreams while cutting down our Christmas tree like in the Hallmark movies.

My husband gave me a new journal for Christmas. The journal is filled with inspirational quotes in the margins of each page. This quote served as the “Introduction”:

“Life throws us curveballs. Dreams get shaken by reality. We are sometimes put into situations we don’t have the strength or wisdom to handle. But the good news is we don’t have to! God loves it when we come to Him because we are at the end of ourselves. That’s when we start relying on Him. He is God of the impossible.”

Heading into this new year, I couldn’t be more “at the end” of myself.

I read this quote on a blog a few months ago, and it resonated with me:

“God does not often reveal His plans for us, because we would run away in fear of the trials that lie before us, not valuing the refining process that makes us a just a little more like Him.”

Mother's Day can be a bittersweet day for many women--especially for those of us longing to be mothers. This year it is a sweet one for me: I started off my weekend scavenging and then washing a tiny soccer uniform, making chocolate chip pancakes and listening to the sweet sound of my son singing "Jesus Loves Me" from his bedroom. But for anyone to fully understand just how sweet this was for me, I really need to start at the beginning of my story...